Various compositions are known to be useful as treating agents to provide surface effects to substrates. Surface effects include repellency to moisture, soil, and stains, and other effects, which are particularly useful for fibrous substrates and other substrates such as hard surfaces. Many such treating agents are fluorinated polymers or copolymers.
Most commercially available fluorinated polymers useful as treating agents for imparting repellency to substrates contain predominately eight or more carbons in the perfluoroalkyl chain to provide the desired repellency properties. Honda et al, in Macromolecules, 2005, 38, 5699-5705 teach that for perfluoroalkyl chains of greater than 8 carbons, orientation of the Rf groups is maintained in a semi-crystalline configuration while for such chains having less than 6 carbon atoms, reorientation occurs. This reorientation decreases surface properties such as contact angle.
Ordering imposed upon perfluorinated alkyl groups by hydrogen bonding networks has been used in gelation of carbon dioxide and the formation of foams, as disclosed by Beckman et. al, in WO 00/35998.
There is a need for compositions that improve the repellency of treating agents for fibrous and/or porous substrates and hard surface substrates while using short chain perfluoroalkyl groups; for instance C6 or less.